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Monday, March 19, 2012

Soul Business: Business Culture

In the business world, money counts; people don't. Or so I've always been taught. The lesson hit me really hard when a wealthy businessman hired my son to wash his cars for the then handsome sum of $5 an hour -- just over minimum wage. This same businessman, hearing that I had just graduated from college (as a single mom with three sons), offered me a job as part time office manager.

I was on a special program at the time, where the state would pay half my wages. This businessman, recognizing that my son wasn't mature enough to handle the job, but that I did have the skills needed, offered to pay me a whopping $4 an hour--of which half was paid by the state! He would be out of pocket $2 an hour. "You have to understand, " he said, "washing my car is personal. This is business."

Oh, so business means screwing your workers, I thought. I did not take the job. My attitude toward business was a bit soured after that.

It has always been important to me to be a kind, compassionate, honest person. To recognize that people are more important than money, to live my work life with the same integrity as my personal life. And I always felt divided, like making money would require me to be the kind of person I detest. Like my personal life and my professional life required me to be two different people, living by two different sets of values.

Until I met Kelly Rae, through her class, Flying Lessons. Here she promised one CAN have a successful profitable creative business in line with one's values. And then, in the HelloSoul HelloBusiness class, she and Beth Nichols showed me how to create a business culture that expresses the same values I live by!!

Here are some of the values I want my business to express:
*Giving Beautifully
*Living Joyfully
*Behaving with Integrity
*Respecting the Earth
*Caring for the Earth's Inhabitants
*Celebrating People of compassionate Power

I am so excited! My business can be a means for living my values! For doing the work -- the soul work--that I feel called to do!

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